


Lanterns

by SquigglyAverageJoe



Series: It’s a perfectlyspookymonthfortheseprompts [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquigglyAverageJoe/pseuds/SquigglyAverageJoe
Summary: It’s artober!! I guess? I barely know what that is, but I want to participate and October second’s prompt was lanterns. I was literally just on Tumblr and now I feel stupid that I read the prompt and thought, “yeah, lanterns, they’re carving pumpkins for Jack-o-lanterns,” but what’s done is done.Rated T for swearing.
Relationships: Blue Link/Green Link/Red Link, Shadow Link/Vio Link
Series: It’s a perfectlyspookymonthfortheseprompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951999
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Lanterns

“This is stupid,” Shadow says. He’s sitting down next to Vio (because, as Green’s noted, when is he _not_ near Vio?), and holding a bright green, plastic knife. Without aiming for any place in particular, he stabs at his pumpkin—the dull knife sinks into the outside, but as he continues to try and push it in, it snaps in his hand. He does not know what he’s doing. He doesn’t seem to want to know what he’s doing. He is perfectly content just trying to stab his pumpkin—he’s gone through five plastic knives. “Why are we doing this again?”

”Because we’ve lost all concept of time and in our excitement to understand that it’s October, we didn’t grasp that our pumpkins will probably have rotted by the time Halloween rolls around!” Red chirps.

Vio’s next to Shadow, but instead of carving a pumpkin, he’s trying to help Shadow pick out a design, because he’s silently excited to be celebrating Halloween with his boyfriend, especially since he’s actually agreed to try out the holiday and all that celebrating the holiday in this house entails. The start is removing the top of the pumpkin—they struggled picking out a pumpkin, because Shadow found a white one that looked like it was dying and had really wanted it, even though Vio said they should probably grab a normal one.

Blue squirms, the plastic tarp beneath them (“Because I’m not cleaning pumpkin off of the floors!”) crinkles beneath him. “This is _gross,_ ” he says.

Vio rolls his eyes. “You haven’t even _touched_ it, Blue.” He flips to the next page in the book that came with the pumpkin carving kit thingies and points at a design. “I think we could do this one,” he says.

Shadow gasps, his eyes widening. “Let’s do that one!” He points at the one right next to it.

”Shadow,” Vio says. “There is no possible way we’ll manage to do that one. It’s just not gonna happen.”

”Not when you say we’re not,” Shadow says. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

Green kind of regrets sharing a pumpkin with Blue. He also regrets doing a pumpkin at all. “Every year,” he sighs.

Blue reaches into the pumpkin—his soul might have just left his body. “ _Euugh_ ,” he says, and then takes his hand out. “What if we just placed _whole_ pumpkins on the porch?”

Red doesn’t even look at him, happily munching down on a cookie—like, the ninth one this morning. “But you guys already started carving!” Red had picked out some pumpkins—at first, he thought he’d just share with Blue and Green, but then he found three small pumpkins that were covered in warts and blemishes and looked hideous and fell in love with them—and had insisted they didn’t need them until they were halfway home before admitting how much he needed those three absolutely hideous pumpkins.

They lived on their dinner table now. Red hadn’t wanted to carve them, so instead, he drew faces on them, and they were looking down at them, while they cut open and stabbed their friends, faces eternally grinning toothy smiles of Sharpie until they decayed.

”Shadow, are you sure you want to go with that one?” Vio asks. “I mean...” He gestures to their pumpkin—he has seen better days.

“Yes,” Shadow says. “I’m already attached, Vio.”

Vio’s smiling—Blue mutters something about how incredibly gay Vio is, but considering Blue has _two_ boyfriends, Green’s pretty sure the three of them are probably gayer. “Hey, Red, can you hand me your knife?”

Red doesn’t say anything in response, just pushes another cookie into his mouth and holds it with his teeth while tossing Shadow his knife—it’s probably a terrible idea, but Shadow catches it, so they’re all fine. “Okay, okay,” Shadow says. “...What do I do now that I’m done stabbing him?”

”Well, you have to stab him again,” Vio says. At that exact moment, Zelda walks in and crouches down next to Green and steals a cookie from Red (though, stealing makes it sound like Red doesn’t happily greet her and offers her the plate). “Except we’re trying to remove the top, like what Blue and Green did.”

”Okay.” Shadow slowly slides it into the pumpkin near the stem—and then it snaps again. “ _Fuck.”_

”You guys have been at it for hours,” Zelda says, and nothing else. It’s an observation, a fact.

”Oh, Zelda!” Red says. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t even—you could take...” He trails off, looks up at the table where his three pumpkins sit. Red makes eye contact with their drawn on ones and he turns to Zelda. “I have no pumpkin to give you...”

”Oh, it’s fine,” she says. “I already have one.”

Green frowns—Zelda hadn’t gone with them to the grocery store for pumpkins. “You do?” He asks.

She nods and takes another cookie. Red grins because he’s going to have to bake more. 

Shadow looks up at Blue. “Hey, Blue, can—“

”No,” he says.

”You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

”Except, I do. No.” Blue makes a face, pulling out a fistful of seeds. “ _Ugggh..._ ”

”That’s a mood,” Shadow responds, morosely tugging on the stem of his pumpkin like it’s going to do anything. Vio hands him a sharpie. “What’s the point of this anyway?”

Vio answers, because he loves to give answers to his boyfriend. “You carve a pumpkin, and then you put a candle in it and put it on the porch.”

”Why would you put a candle on the porch?” Shadow asks. “What if someone steals our candles?”

“No one’s gonna steal our candles,” Blue says. “That’s the worst possible thing to steal.”

Red picks up the lighter but Shadow continues. “I don’t know, it just seems kind of pointless to me—you go through all that work of murdering your pumpkin just to burn it’s remains?”

”You don’t burn the pumpkin, stupid,” Blue responds.

Shadow doesn’t say anything back—his eyes are trained on the flame in Red’s hand. “Shadow,” Vio says, but his boyfriend only has eyes for the orange flame on the lighter. “Shadow?”

Green reaches over and plucks the lighter out of Red’s hands, placing it down on the floor beside him. Red blinks, like he’s coming out of a trance and Shadow frowns. There’s a knock on the door and Zelda hops to her feet, a cookie still held between her lips.

”Ugh,” Blue grumbles beside him. “We wasted our money with this, this is stupid.” Across from him, Vio leans on Shadow’s shoulder and sighs contentedly while Shadow draws a face on the pumpkin. They’re obviously not gonna carve it, and considering Vio’s usually the one to worry about money, this is a tad out of character, but he looks very happy and Green doesn’t want to disturb them.

Helpfully, Green tells him, “You just don’t like getting your hands dirty.”

Blue doesn’t bat an eyelash. “I’m gonna get your face dirty.”

A door slam draws them out of their playful argument and Zelda comes back, a brown package in her hands which she sets down by the pumpkins. “What’s in the box?” Red asks, cheerful as ever.

”Is that your pumpkin?” Shadow asks, sliding the cap back onto the marker.

”As a matter of fact...” Zelda pauses, for dramatic effect, Green supposes, and whips out her pocket knife. It’s a really long pause because she struggles to dig the blade into the tape and pull up the flaps, and by the time she’s rummage around the packaging to pull out the object she bought, Green’s already guessed it’s something at least pumpkin related. She places it down on the coffee table, round, orange and glossy, a white cord curling around Zelda’s arm as she admires it. “It is!”

A jack-o-lantern with dark eyes and a toothy grin looms over them. “Wow,” Shadow says. “Nice jack-o-lantern, must have took forever to carve.”

”You know it.” She plugs it in—Green doesn’t know what it is until she retreats into her room and comes back with a large, metal tub. It’s where she keeps her wax melts. “How does _nightlight rain_ sound?”

”Better than pumpkin,” Blue says, looking down at his pumpkin. “We _should_ let Shadow and Red burn them.”

Red’s eyes light up. “We can roast marshmallows on the flames.” They don’t have marshmallows. It’s probably a bad idea, because it’s raining and like, forty degrees out and roasting marshmallows only leads to burning marshmallows and only Shadow likes them burnt.

Shadow speaks up. “I _like_ mine and Vio’s jack-o-lantern!” He looks over at Vio. A book has materialized out of thin air and has found it’s way into his palms. Vio is oblivious to their discussion. Shadow has noticed. “It’s like our kid, because we both put a lot of effort into it, and now we’re gonna marry over this, right, Vio?” Vio doesn’t respond. “And then we’re never going to have any books.”

Vio looked up and blinked. “What?”

Blue gestures to it—if jack-o-lanterns could bleed, this one would have bled dry by now. “You stabbed it, like, nine times.”

”I was trying to make him pretty.”

”Yeah,” Green says. “Just because our pumpkin looks terrible—“

Shadow’s laughing. He tells Vio he loves him and Blue’s interrupted his sentence by smearing pumpkin on the side of his face—it’s even more disgusting then you would think.”

Zelda turns her pumpkin on. “I love him,” she decides. She turns to face them, leaned up against the dining room table—Green always forgets how tall she is until she’s standing up. He feels like an ant beside her right now.   
  
Red frowns. “He needs a witch hat.”

”No,” Zelda says. “He’s perfect. And a hat would catch fire.”

”That’s why he needs it.”

It’s an hour later when Green’s finally rubbed the remains of his and Blue’s pumpkin off of his cheek and his hands don’t smell too much like pumpkin. He sighs, grabbing a hand towel and glancing towards the dining room. Vio and Shadow’s pumpkin sits outside on the porch, to stare at the pavement in the night. Zelda’s pumpkin sits atop the table, surrounded by Red’s ugly pumpkins, with a glowing glare.

A floorboard creaks somewhere in the hallway and Green stops. It’s dark and late and the night always puts Green slightly on edge, but it’s just Blue. “You still up?” He asks, approaching slowly.

”Yeah,” Green responds. “You too?”

”Yeah.” Blue keeps his voice quiet and stands by his side. “My hands still smell like pumpkin, it’s really gross.”

Green chuckles. “Yeah. We never learn from the year before, huh?” Blue murmurs a “No,” and kisses his cheek and Green can’t stop the smile from appearing on his face. Blue’s always a lot more lovey-dovey when no one’s around. Green grabs the fabric of his t-shirt and presses a chaste kiss on his mouth.

”Oh, you guys are up too?” Red’s voice calls in the darkness. Suddenly, someone is at Green’s side, Red’s height with his voice.

Blue runs a hand through Red’s hair and kisses his temple. “What do you think, dummy?” Red giggles, quiet and cheerful.   
  
There’s another creak, but not from the hallway—from the front porch. Another creak—and then shuffling and rapid footsteps retreating into the night. Red freezes. “What was that?”

”I’ll go check,” Blue says, his voice soft. Green lingers behind him, because he doesn’t think there’s really a problem, but he wants Blue to stay safe. The door swings open, near silent on its hinges, revealing the endlessly black evening. Slowly, Blue shuts the door and sighs like there’s a problem. 

Red perks up. “What is it?” He asks, blue eyes shining, skin glinting like bronze in the strange orange glow of Zelda’s jack-o-lantern.

”We’re gonna have to tell Shadow,” Blue says. “Someone stole his candle right out of his pumpkin.”


End file.
